46 Responses

The news stories were heartbreaking; footage of a focused, determined, extremely likeable woman – one of those politicians who you can immediately tell – instinctively, in your bones – is a force to be reckoned with. Someone who is going places. But it was the awful, mundane little details in today’s newspaper reports that really hit home for me. Her aide stood by her body crying “no Jo, no Jo” and the high-heel shoe still lying in the middle of the street; the killer shouting ‘Britain first’ over and over again, even as he was being arrested; Muslim women hurrying over to help her.

The solitary crumb of comfort is that he seems to have been a mentally-ill loner rather than some far-right jihadi equivalent: a nationalist foot-soldier acting in concert with others. It’s not much to hang onto though.

Ah! We’re moved on from mourning an admirable humanitarian, internationalist socialist, to Dean posting something (which I have no interest in viewing or listening to) from a fascistic, isolationist scumbag and bigot.

I fear that this small Socialist group, Socialist Appeal, has just now issued a statement saying what needs to be said:

“Both the Remain and Leave sides immediately condemned the killing and issued statements abhorring violence. We do not doubt the sincerity of these statements. But it begs the question. What role did the anti-immigrant, xenophobic propaganda of the Brexit campaign play in this? That question will not go away and will have to be addressed.

The hasty denials of a political link are contradicted by the known facts of the case. Both the target of the murderer and the timing of his actions are surely not coincidental. Jo Cox, who was elected to parliament as a Labour MP for the Batley and Spen constituency last year, like almost all Labour MPs, was a supporter of the campaign for Britain to remain in the EU. Her husband Brendan and two small children took part in a high-profile pro-EU flotilla on the Thames the day before the shooting.

I would not for a single moment have wished her slain, but we do need to understand that the late Jo Cox was a posturing LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME! “Welcome Refugees!” virtue exhibitor and all-purpose Oxbridge-educated ninny, far more interested in the poor little nippers of Aleppo, the upper Zambezi basin, the lower Limpopo estuary and other hell-holes in the Turd World than in the very real social problems of the constituency she was elected to represent.

Her constituents certainly don’t seem to agree with the kind of racist shite Billy Corr expounds: they’re all praising her as a superb constituency MP – who was also concerned about the rest of the world. Only a racist moron would assume the two are incompatible.

Interesting to read that (pretty good) piece from Socialist Appeal, considering that they’ve voiced their support for Putin invading Ukraine over a simple association agreement with the EU in the past, as well as supporting neo-fascist “Ukrexiters” in the East of that country.

And no Dean, Jo Cox didn’t vote to bomb Syria, you pathetic man. She abstained.

” even if he was not part of any organised right-wing group, big-business politicians on both sides of the EU referendum debate have dangerously whipped up racism and anti-migrant feelings.”

“the groundswell of support for exit, the position supported by the Socialist Party from a pro-working class, internationalist standpoint, is in large part working class people taking an opportunity to show their opposition to the Tories and the capitalist establishment.
”

The fund set up in Jo’s name is backing three groups, one of which is Syrian Civil Defence, aka the White Helmets.

There are some from the fascist right, the foolish conspiracists and some from the ‘anti-imperialist’ left who have been defaming the White Helmets ever since they were established. Selfless Syrian humanitarians have been traduced by these people as somehow pawns of the West with all the usual fake news sites publishing conspiracist nonsense with all the usual buzzwords included, such as, of course, ‘Soros’.

I’m glad that the fund included the White Helmets because part of Jo’s work was working for civilian protection in Syria and that’s exactly what the White Helmets so bravely do. Traducing them at this time could not better expose those doing it for what they are; the enemies of humanity in every meaning of that word.

“The solitary crumb of comfort is that he seems to have been a mentally-ill loner rather than some far-right jihadi equivalent: a nationalist foot-soldier acting in concert with others. It’s not much to hang onto though.”

Not another ‘loner’. Or the alternative ‘private person’. Just because someone “prefers to work alone rather than as part of a team” does not mean they are mentally. What’s this? He was “unemployed”. An “unemployed loner” must be guilty. This is the way (prosecution) barristers work; they don’t actually present any evidence, they ‘build a picture’ based on stereotypes. “Loner” – go to jail! “Unemployed” – go to jail! It is a very dangerous road to go down considering the DWP is treating jobseekers as “mentally ill” and trying to change public perception towards this twisted and perverted way of thinking.

The media automatically ascribe the term ‘loner’ to anyone accused of committing these crimes as well as “The neighbours said he was ‘strange'”, “Neighbours said he used to talk to his guns”, “A source said…” In other words just completely made up tripe. And we keep falling for it. Look at what happened to Chris Jeffries, an innocent man, who the media accused of murdering Yvonne Yeates to give but one example. The “media” is not worth the time of day.

When I was last in Tripoli (nearly 2 years ago now) I met a young fellow from South Sudan who was keen that I should tell him what his Refugee ID card was worth; it was worth f-ck all – it was misspelled and a glaring forgery. He’d paid $100USD for it in a place where that is a big wodge of cash.

My lawful wedded wife is a Japanese who divides her time between Japan and Bulgaria. In recent years I have worked in Libya, where I ran away from a small but nasty civil war nearly 2 years ago, and Saudi Arabia. My permanent home is Cambodia.
No Slovak has ever been part of my life (thus far)

I look forward to “Truthseeker”s theories on 9/11, flying saucers, Hitler and the Zionists, Jack the Ripper and the Marie Celeste. Amazing that no-one else has noticed that Jo Cox’s family have been laughing throughout.

Thomas Mair, 46, started volunteering at the park after learning about the opportunity through the Mirfield-based Pathways Day Centre for adults with mental health problems.

He said: “I can honestly say it has done me more good than all the psychotherapy and medication in the world. “Many people who suffer from mental illness are socially isolated and disconnected from society, feelings of worthlessness are also common mainly caused by long-term unemployment.

“All these problems are alleviated by doing voluntary work.

“Getting out of the house and meeting new people is a good thing, but more important in my view is doing physically demanding and useful labour.

“When you have finished there is a feeling of achievement which is emotionally rewarding and psychologically fulfilling.

“For people for whom full-time, paid employment is not possible for a variety of reasons, voluntary work offers a socially positive and therapeutic alternative.”

I was never in Poland and I know no Edwina Corr. The last time I was
snuggling up with a black woman was in 2010-2011 in Cameroun, where I
lived for six months (Male readers may be interested to know that a daily
anti-malarial tablet depletes one’s energy level by at least 10% and has a
very perceptible negative effect on one’s romantic life.
Nudge. Nudge. Wink. Wink. Say no more.)

As for the Japanese, she has been repeatedly implored to sell up in
Bulgaria and come to live in Cambodia. She is resolute in her refusal to do this.

The former MP George Galloway has issued a court apology and agreed to pay damages to his former assistant Aisha Ali-Khan over claims that she helped her former police officer husband run a dirty tricks operation against him and his Respect party.

Galloway, who was beaten into a humiliating seventh place in last month’s election for London mayor, formally withdrew claims he made in 2012 that Ali-Khan helped her former husband, Afiz Khan, to spy on him when Khan was a senior Metropolitan police officer.

His lawyer, Adam Speker, apologised to Ali-Khan at an open hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice in front of Mr Justice Warby.

Galloway, who was not in court, has also paid a five-figure sum in damages to settle the claim. The case represents a rare legal blow for Galloway after a string of libel victories.

Galloway made the libellous claims in a blogpost in October 2012. The court heard that they were then repeated by his spokesman in comments to the Mail on Sunday.

Ali-Khan’s lawyer, Mark Lewis, told the court that the paper then falsely claimed that Ali-Khan and her then husband had “conspired to run a dirty tricks campaign against the defendant [Galloway] and the Respect party”. Afiz Khan was at the time a senior officer in the Metropolitan police’s counter-terrorism unit, SO15

Lewis added that the paper also said “the claimant had been used as a police agent and that the claimant had slept with the officer at the defendant’s home”.

Lewis told the court: “She was not involved in leaking information to national newspapers or acting as a police agent. She had not slept with the officer, with whom she was married in a sharia law ceremony, at the defendant’s home.”

In a brief statement, Galloway’s lawyer withdrew the claims. Speker said: “The defendant accepts these [articles] contain defamatory accusations for which, through me, he apologises. He now withdraws these allegations. He has made payment for damages and agreed to pay legal costs.”

Galloway and Ali-Khan both agreed not to make any further comment.

Asked how much Galloway had paid to settle the claim, Lewis said: “The Huffington Post says it is a five-figure sum. I’m not demurring from that. The last two figures aren’t pennies.”

The case is the latest in a number of legal battles involving Ali-Khan. In 2014, she pleaded guilty to encouraging Afiz Khan to access confidential emails.

She admitted encouraging Khan to obtain private information without consent while he was a senior detective. He had previously admitted to two counts of misconduct in public office, and was dismissed by the Metropolitan police.

Earlier in 2014, Ali-Khan was jailed for two findings of contempt of court. She was charged with failing to destroy explicit images of her husband and his estranged wife, and failing to sign an affidavit confirming that she had destroyed the images.

The former teacher was ordered to hand over or delete the illicit images after Khan’s estranged wife went to the high court to prevent the pictures being made public. However, she defied that court order and on 3 April was jailed for three months and ordered to pay about £10,000 in court costs.

However, at a subsequent court of appeal hearing the finding that she had failed to destroy the images was quashed but the finding that she failed to sign the affidavit was upheld. The sentence was reduced to 28 days.

Had I been posting with fervour to TC in the past few years, posts would have come from {not in order} Cameroun, Cambodia, Bulgaria, Jazan in Saudi Arabia with the Yemeni war next door, messed-up Libya, wretched bloody awful Kabul in Afghanistan, quite decent Iraqi Kurdistan. lovely Hove in Sussex, vibrant and dynamic Londonistan,and green and tranquil County Leitrim.

The three Libyan periods and the last one-year Saudi period were to pay off my partner’s house loans in Cambodia.

I spent most of the week planting mangoes, mangosteens and lychees
but – as a gesture of esteem – I planted the seeds from forty pods of red
chilli peppers between the mangoes and mangosteens yesterday.